Every year on National Doughnut Day…

(That’s a thing?)

Yup!

(You are making that up.)

Oh no, it’s a real thing looked it up.

(Is it a Jewish thing?)

Well….the first recipe for jelly doughnuts was traced back to the Germans in 1485. One story has it that Jews created the jelly donut as a kosher alternative to meat filled, lard fried berliners that the Christians were eating.

It’s not from the Maccabees?

No, and there were no potatoes recipes before the time of Columbus either.

(So what did they use?)

Let’s stick to the doughnuts and before you ask…Dunkin Donuts was started by a Jew named William Rosenberg in 1950. National Doughnut Day was originally National Doughnut Week and it was started by the Salvation Army in 1938, as a way to feed people during the Great Depression.

(That’s interesting, but this is a sports article. What is the connection?)

On every previous National Doughnut Day, I have gone for a run with my New York City Marathon buddy, Martin Bodek.

(Do you run doughnut patterns?)

We run and then we eat doughnuts.

(But we are into our fourth month of “social distancing.”)

Like many runners, I have found a way to “return to normalcy”.

(Six feet apart?)

Yes.

(Masks?)

That too.

(Is it any different running in a mask?)

It is much harder to breathe when running in a mask, but that is a good thing.

(How is making it harder to breathe “a good thing?”)

The harder you work at breathing during a 30 minutes run session, the better you will perform in a two hour race.

(Are there any races this year?)

Not yet, but more on that next month. Now where was I?

(National-Something-Day)

National Doughnut Day is the first Friday in June, but by the time I realized that I was 48 hours from my doughnut, it was too late to change the three training appointments I had with my athletes.

So, I suggested to Martin that we do this doughnut run remotely.

(Doughnut Zooming?)

Very much so. I have clients who live out of state, so tele-coaching is nothing new for me.

(Is that like tele-medicine?)

Yes, except no one is asking me to stick out my tongue.

I figured that it didn’t matter where I ate my doughnut; Martin would be eating his in front of his house.

(But in the picture, he is in front of your house.)

He decided to surprise me.

Unbeknownst to me Martin had contacted my wife to determine what my schedule was.

(You have a schedule?)

I do and based on my usual schedule, my wife was expecting me home by 7:30 a.m.

(So, nu…what happened?)

When you train people to run outdoors, your schedule is subject to the weather.

(You shifted three workout times around a rainstorm?)

Needless to say, I stacked all three “face-to-face…”

(Mask-six feet apart-mask.)

…sessions on that Friday morning.

And that is why, in the age of “social distancing,” I was sharing the experience of eating a doughnut in New York City with Martin Bodek, while he was eating one in New Jersey, in front of my house.

David Roher is a USAT certified marathon and triathlon coach. He is a multi-Ironman finisher and a veteran special education teacher. He can be reached at: [email protected]